I think that if you are concerned about improving transit on the East Side and the areas of concentrated racial poverty the focus should be on the Rush Line. This line along the highway looks like it will have minimal impact. It is primarily a suburban connection, not a St. Paul economic development tool or transit improvement.

Vagueperson wrote:I think that if you are concerned about improving transit on the East Side and the areas of concentrated racial poverty the focus should be on the Rush Line. This line along the highway looks like it will have minimal impact. It is primarily a suburban connection, not a St. Paul economic development tool or transit improvement.

I think you need to look at both, especially when the Rush Line is (at best!) ten years in the future and mostly fantasy right now. I don't believe that the money "saved" from killing this would be enough to make a real stab at Rush anyway, so we aren't talking an opportunity cost there either.

EOst wrote:The Lake Elmo routing at least offered the hope for potential future walkable development; it's hard to imagine that springing up in Woodbury, the way its platted and constructed.

If this is true for Woodbury, why is it also not true for Eden Prairie and Minnetonka Brooklyn Park and anywhere else we're likely going to build expensive transit to? One could definitely make the case that the Met Council has no (realistic) way to encourage cities to change their zoning and local area plans in favor of dense, walkable, multi-modal development without infrastructure projects like this one. Whether that's worth the money spent building those lines (or segments of lines) is another question entirely, but these suburbs aren't going to sprout dense, walkable nodes without transit. I guess maybe I haven't played as much attention to east metro politics (beyond the craziness in LE), and maybe Woodbury/Washington County wouldn't have the commitment to land use reform that EP/Hennepin County have shown? Even still, I dunno.

RailBaronYarr wrote:If this is true for Woodbury, why is it also not true for Eden Prairie and Minnetonka Brooklyn Park and anywhere else we're likely going to build expensive transit to?

Because while Brooklyn Park and Eden Prairie are also not particularly walkable as a whole, they have job-rich destinations that are reasonably walkable from their station areas, especially with the infrastructure changes that those cities have already committed to. Woodbury doesn't really have anything comparable to the Golden Triangle or the Target HQ; even "downtown Woodbury" (Valley Creek Rd & 494) is mostly big-box stores and chain restaurants. It's a lot easier to target infrastructure improvements and redevelopment when people have a reason to ride transit there in the first place.

I don't know. I wouldn't call myself "enthusiastic" about this corridor east of Sun Ray, but as long as Washington County's money is paying for this thing's operating costs, it sounds like a worthwhile deal. If you start from the premise that Woodbury et al. are going to want to keep growing with or without transit, I'd rather they do it under the former than the latter.

That's a good answer to the question "Why Build the Green and Blue Line extensions" (in addition to the fact that people in the suburbs are much more likely to use a train than a bus, even if you stick a feather on the bus and call it "macaroni" and pretend it deserves to be a bright color on the Metro Transit Map".)

I read the question was "why would building them change land use patterns". I don't think it would, but I don't think that's a reason not to build them. But with BRT I'm not convinced there's any reason at all to build them rather than sticking with the current pattern of express busses to downtown combined with local service in some of the denser suburbs. (Which as a previous poster noted thousands of people in teh surburbs already use.

Meanwhile there seems to be a disconnect. NorthStar was a failure and people are blaming the concept; that commuter rail doesn't work here, and there's no appetite for trying another one. Meanwhile we have a suburban BRT line that doesn't work, and people are blaming the implementation and already planning two more of them.

Mdcastle wrote:Meanwhile we have a suburban BRT line that doesn't work, and people are blaming the implementation and already planning two more of them.

FWIW, I was coming home from the Eagan outlet mall at 4:15pm on Saturday. The Southbound Red Line bus I passed was PACKED, literally.

I still don't know why so many people hate this line so much?! I ride the Blue Line to MOA 3 days/week and I will say that every time I'm there, the Red Line waiting area is always full. Morning & afternoon. It must be pretty shitty service to have that many people using it...
The hate for the suburbs seems to spill over in many threads on this board. Whether the Red Line, Blue Line, Green Line, Gold Line or whatever. I just don't get it.

Includes new bridge over 94 with dedicated lanes for bus, motorists, and trails by Helmo and Hudson Blvd. linking Helmo to Bielenberg. Such a bridge is already in Oakdale and Woodbury's long term plan anyway.

This is probably answered upthread somewhere, but is the dedicated busway dedicated for the Gold Line exclusively, or will Woodbury express buses be able to use them to skip congestion on that part of 94 as well?

Silophant wrote:This is probably answered upthread somewhere, but is the dedicated busway dedicated for the Gold Line exclusively, or will Woodbury express buses be able to use them to skip congestion on that part of 94 as well?

AFAIK, the plan is to allow other bus routes to use the busway too. I'd imagine that the Minneapolis expresses (355, 365, 375, future Manning Rd express) will use the busway to Mounds Bl and enter I-94 there. That would allow those buses to make some of the more major stops, like Metro State and 3M for additional commuters. The Red Rock corridor will likely use the busway from Hwy 61 to Downtown St. Paul, and I'd imagine that the Hwy 61 expresses (361, 364, 365) will do the same.

New options for the east of 694 alignment have been revealed. The new options are looking into various alignments that serve Helmo/4th, Inwood/4th, Tamarack/Bielenburg, and Woodbury Theatre. It isn't clear, but it looks like they will be dropping the options east of Inwood/Radio Dr.

The timeline is aggressive; they want to vote on the LPA in the next few months. A few open houses are coming up as well:
Open House - Oct. 5
5:00-7:00pm
Envision Center
484 Inwood Ave N, Oakdale
Public Hearing - Nov. 10
5:30 (Open House) 6:30 (Public Hearing)
Woodbury City Hall
8301 Valley Creek Rd

If they have moved away from the idea of serving the distant I-94 east travelshed (east of Radio/Inwood several more miles to Manning/MN-95), then that's a really positive development. I really don't see demand for anything other than peak hour service east of Radio/Inwood/13. AFAIK, Metro Transit is still planning a P&R at I-94/Manning, which would have express service. I always hated the idea of Gold Line going that far east into the farm fields.

However, the fatal flaw with these new alternatives is that "Tamarack Station" doesn't serve the enormous Tamarack Village shopping center and several hundred (maybe a thousand?) retail jobs. If the line goes to Radio/Inwood Station (Guardian Angels Church*) then serving Tamarack Village is an absolute must...it's right over the damn freeway. They do propose to serve the Inwood P&R and the Woodbury Theater P&R, both of which are near smaller shopping centers (and some nearby residential), but Tamarack Village is larger than both Woodbury Village (theater) and Oakdale Village (Inwood Station area) combined.

*where young twincitizen had his baptism, first communion, confirmation, and became an atheist.

Seems like they could go south from the Inwood Ave Station, across 94, to Hudson Rd. just as easily as the other bridging 94 options. This route would allow Tamarack Station to become Tamarack Village Station, going through the parking lot, then go west on Tamarack Rd. to southbound Bielenberg Dr., like the plans showed. Why does this seem so simple? Am I missing something that would make this not workable?

1. Could be related to the history of this line and why it was planned to go through Lake Elmo over Woodbury in the first place (before Lake Elmo reversed course). I don't know the exact details as it was pretty early in the Alternatives Analysis, but something along the lines of Woodbury (and perhaps the owner of Tamarack Village) not wanting the bus mucking up existing traffic on Radio, affecting private property, etc. A Woodbury route always made more sense than Lake Elmo, so there was probably good reason (at the time) that planners were effectively left with "choosing" the Lake Elmo route. I always felt the decision to go with the Lake Elmo route over Woodbury was kind of sudden and underreported in the press, so I just assumed they got a hard "no" from Woodbury elected officials and/or Tamarack Village.
2. Could be something to do with Tiller's comment about Woodbury wanting the new bridge.
3. Could also be that planners (and WashCo politicians) are overly obsessed with having dedicated BRT busway for nearly the entire route. By crossing I-94 on a new bridge and then going down Bielenberg Drive, perhaps the plan is to reconstruct the street and have shoulder running buses or something (even though that is completely unnecessary on these overbuilt arterial stroads)